Clarence Mitchell, Kate and Gerry McCann's spokesman, has joined PR and marketing agency Freud Communications.
Mitchell will be a consultant specialising in crisis and issues management, media training and scenario planning at the agency, which counts Pepsi and Walkers Crisps among its clients. He started work yesterday.
The former BBC journalist has secured a 12-month contract at Freud but will not stop working with the McCanns, whose five-year-old daughter Madeleine has been missing for 16 months.
Mitchell said: "It is an exciting opportunity to work with one of the biggest and best PR companies in the country.
"It gives me the potential to work with a much wider range of clients if and when they find themselves in the news. Kate and Gerry and their financial backer Brian Kennedy have given me their full backing."
Mitchell will continue to advise the McCanns on a monthly retainer basis. He was being paid £80,000 a year by Cheshire-based double glazing tycoon Kennedy, who is a backer of the McCanns.
He will also carry on supporting his other clients. They include Fiona MacKeown, whose daughter Scarlett was murdered in Goa; the parents of Jimmy Mizen, who was stabbed to death in London; and the parents of missing teenager Amy Fitzpatrick.
"My new role will involve different ways of working for clients depending on their circumstances. I will advise them as part of the Freud services package," Mitchell said.
"I am working on a freelance basis which will allow me to continue speaking for Kate and Gerry whenever Madeleine or the ongoing search for her is in the news. I am very happy to continue representing Kate and Gerry. This is not a parting of the waves. I need to expand and consolidate what I am doing," he added.
"I am very pleased that Freud found my media background and high-level media contacts to be of sufficient interest to take me on in this way."
At Freud, Mitchell will report to Nicola Howson, the former ITV director of corporate affairs, who is responsible for the agency's corporate and media practice.
Mitchell stepped down from his role as director of the media monitoring unit at the government's Central Office of Information in September last year to handle the McCanns' PR full time.
Before that, he had been acting as an adviser to the McCanns last summer at the request of the Foreign Office, while retaining his government role.
Mitchell was previously head of media monitoring for the Cabinet Office.
He was also a journalist for 25 years, starting out in print and then as a broadcaster with the BBC, covering a variety of stories including the Fred and Rose West murders and Soham. As a royal correspondent he covered the death of Princess Diana.
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